Headless Kross - Burning Hammer

From the 2011 album "Bear", which is available as a pay what you want download from the Headless Kross bandcamp.  Yes, Headless Kross are on facebook.

I only listen to...

Thanks Tara!

Gakken vs Sepultura

I've been considering getting a Gakken SX150 to play with, maybe circuit bend, so naturally I did some google-based research. I found some cool videos of folk hacking them and using them in various ways, but when I found this I had to share:



I especially love the guitar body he's built for it.

The rest of the videos by The Clap are worth a wander through as well.

Chrome Hoof at Bestival 2010

OK, as much as I bitched on about Bestival this year, there was some good stuff too. One of the highlights was seeing Chrome Hoof playing avant disco-metal on the fire spitting, spider-shaped retro-futurist Archadia stage. SERIOUS Thunderdome vibes in the area!

\m/ Meh-tolll vidz \m/

I spent far too long last night watching old school metal videos on Youtube, so much that I ended up dreaming about metal-y thing in my sleep. It was worth it though as I discovered some priceless gems I would like to share.

I hadn't heard Saint Vitus before, but I will be hella checking them from now on. They were one of the very first doom/stoner metal bands. Their primary influences were Black Sabbath and Black Flag, which says it all. The sound's not great on this but as a performance video it's awesome:



On a slightly more ridiculous tip, but no less entertaining for that, is this 7 minute epic video for Candlemass' "Bewitched". A bit less rough and ready than Saint Vitus, with a more operatic feel and a knowing sense of humour, it's worth sticking with this video all the way to see the "doomdancing" and also the coffin-surrounded-by-headbangers moment too.



There's a metal doc floating around on Youtube too called "Get Thrashed", which is a great primer for the US 80s (mostly) West Coast thrash scene, covering as it does Anthrax, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and more. It's disjointed as it's not been uploaded in full, but worth seeking out in its fragmented form. Here's a a segment on Exodus:


I came to these clips in a roundabout way after looking up Heavy Metal Parking Lot, and then moving on to the Decline of Western Civilization Part 2. Both these docs are on Youtube in full, and come highly recommended.

Dizzee Spatula - free download

After some positive feedback for the last NORAVE mix, I decided to turn the Dizzee Rascal / Sepultura mix into a full on mash-up. So here it is:



Dizzee Spatula by littlerockrecords

SLAYER Raining Blood (4K Mix) Free Download

Who said electro-house and thrash metal don't mix? It's with great pleasure that we present this remix of Slayer's classic Raining Blood by Killer Killer Kiss Kiss, aka the very talented Tiny Dynamite. Kerry King probably wouldn't like it, which makes it all the better.

SLAYER Raining Blood (4K Mix) by littlerockrecords

It's TAD motherfucker!!!!!

I found this (^) great clip lately of a reformed Soundgarden (minus Chris Cornell) playing in Seattle with Tad Doyle on vocals. However, I was pissed off by the many comments left by total rock noobs along the lines of "Soundgarden ith liek tho awethum! But who's the fat guy?". Bitchez - the fat guy is TAD. IT"S TAD MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!



I may be showing my age here a bit, but in my youth Tad was a rock icon. For those who don't know, TAD (the band, fronted by Tad the man) were at the forefront of the first wave of Seattle bands that came to be known as "grunge". TAD's "God's Balls" and "Salt Lick" releases were hugely influential on the likes of Nirvana, combining as they did the heaviness of Sabbath with a rough punk spirit, all bound up in a beer-stained check shirt. Unfortunately they seemed dogged by bad luck, as none of their records got the proper exposure they deserved, but man do they still stand up! Here's some more TAD goodness:




Stumblin Man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAMXakcYVLU
Trash Truck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csmybgZLK8M
High On The Hog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE5APzEKsFY



Anyway, there's an amazing documentary on TAD called "Busted Circuits and Ringing Ears" that was made in 2008. It features some very candid commentary on the Seattle scene from the likes of Mark Arm of Mudhoney, Pavitt & Poneman from Sub Pop, Krist Novoselic, and an amazingly youthful looking Chad Channing. Here's the trailer (if you have any interest in alternative music then this film is a must):



Tad Doyle is still making music, now it's some fierce doom-metal as Brothers Of The Sonic Cloth, which you can hear over at his website www.taddoyle.com. You can also buy the DVD there, and some other cool shit. Unfortunately the older TAD records seem to be out of print, but word on the grapevine is that producer Jack Endino has a remixed version of the "God's Balls" album ready to drop, if only Sub Pop records feel there's a demand for the re-release. So send them an email asking for it: info@subpop.com

Damo Suzuki

The world-renowned singer / multi-instrumentalist / improv co-ordinator Damo Suzuki will be playing at the CCA later this month (promoted by our friends at Cry Parrot), and amongst his line-up of improv artists this time round is the very talented (and totally nuts) Hamish Black, also known as guitarist in XMRV and Christfuck. At the age of 20, this will be his second time playing with Damo Suzuki, and he's previously shared the stage with Einsturzende Neubauten, as well as having self-released six or seven albums and toured Europe with XMRV. As well as shredding lead guitar for XMRV, Hamish also programmes, plays bass and generally fucks shit up, making drone, metal, improv and free noise. He is insanely talented.

I've been listening to his stuff for ages and thought I'd post a few links to some of the free EPs he's put out through his myspace / last.fm etc.
Hamish Black - Khudo: Heavily texturised noise - relying more on the keyboards and synths than on the guitar as a prominent instrument.
Hamsh Black - Baby (L)P - Darker, noise-based tunes.

A fair amount of music can also be found on his last.fm, and myspace. I'll try to get a condensed package up soon.

Chrome Hoof @ Sub Club

So, Chrome Hoof played at the Sub Club on Sunday night, as part of the new post-Optimo club night called "Hung Up".



They rocked, they progged, they disco-ed, they even doomed - in short it was fucking awesome! I haven't seen a band who have combined so many disparate genres and made it really work in a loooong time. There was eight of them on a small stage dressed in matching silver spangly capes (except for the singer Lola who was uber-glam, and the drummer Milo who had his own special black getup) - the usual drums/bass/guitar/keys scenario but with added electric violin, saxophone and trumpet. It shouldn't be a surprise as to how good they are though - they count among the band members of other groups like reknowned house act Spektrum, doom legends Cathedral and Dissident faves Binary Chaffinch.



They have just dropped their new album Crush Depth and it comes highly recommended. They manage to pull off the trick of being musically all over the shop but tied together with unique focus and vision. Being that the band was formed in 2000 by brothers Leo and Milo Smee, also the rhythm section, that would make sense. There's definitely a whiff of Goblin to the proceeding, which makes even more sense and endears them to me even more. So, if you have a chance to see this band live this summer, do it, and if not (or even if so) go out and get Crush Depth RIGHT THIS BLOODY MINUTE!!



Chrome Hoof Myspace

Where have all believers gone?

"The British Social Attitudes survey of religious belief in Britain shows the decline in Christianity generally and Anglicanism in particular continuing. But what it does not show is any concomitant rise in atheism."

 From The Guardian

To celebrate, here's "Outcast" by Hungarian metalheads 'Ektomorph':